Echoes of The Past - Shenanigans (Pt. 3)

"AAAH!" Nibble fell to the ground and instinctly went to swipe whatever fell on him. However, he stopped when he heard the little voice come from the ridgerunner.

"Arrrgh!" The ridgerunner imitated a pirate with a child's voice. In fact, this ridgerunner was a child- not much older than Cynthia or Echo.

He had a ruddy face like he had been playing up in the rafters and had a homemade eyepatch over one of his eyes but the one eye that was visible was brown. His hair was thick and wispy and he was half of Zarabean's height, making him rather small in comparison to the human children. It was a wonder how he knocked down Nibble to begin with. He also had a pretend sword in one of his hands.

"Aargh!" The ridgerunner shouted in a piratey accent. "It's a sea monster, crew!" He talked to himself as though he were playing with others but in reality, it was only him that was playing. "Take aim at the eyes!" He squealed as he began to give Nibble little slaps in a play-fighting manner.

Nibble, who only had one eye left and wasn't about have it poked, grabbed the little pirate and pulled him off so that he wasn't on top of him. The little guy flailed about and swung his cardboard sword. "Calm down!" Nibble hissed.

"Don't hurt Nibble!" Cynthia anxiously watched, not understanding that the strange ridgerunner was playing.

Zarabean quickly walked over and took the child ridgerunner (who was flailing) from Nibble. "Hey, what are you do-"

The small fruit lover poked Zarabean in the eye with his sword, causing poor Bean to drop him.

"Ow!" Zarabean rubbed his eye as the child ran off shouting.

"Retreat! Retreat!" The kidgerunner scampered away with his imaginary crew.

Cynthia hurried over to her friend. "Are you okay, Bean?!" She tried to get a look at his eye but since he was rubbing it, she couldn't see it.

"It's fine." Zarabean replied begrudgingly.

Celeste peeked her head inside the room. "Is everything okay in here...?"

Nibble got up off the floor. "Ridgerunnersss are coming out of the ceiling!"

"What??" Celeste asked with surprise.

"It was only one and it was rambunctious." Zarabean replied as he blinked his eye to see if he could still see out of it.

"Oh. Was it hostile?" Celeste asked upon seeing Zarabean was bothering with his eye.

"Well, yes and no." Zarabean stopped rubbing his eye when he concluded no damage had been done and he looked up at Celeste. "He was pretending we were pirates and I think he just got a little too carried away with playing. From the looks of it, I'd say he was about five or six years old."

"Aw... It sounds like he needs friends..." Celeste smiled. "Sorry he poked your eye out though."

"I'll live." Zarabean chuckled.

Cynthia sighed with relief. "He really scared me..."

"Aw, it'sss okay, Cy. He's jussst a little one. Probably don't know how to behave himself." Nibble shrugged as he stood up and got back to setting up his hammock.

"Well, I'll let you all get settled in. I'll see you in the morning." Celeste smiled at all of them before she headed back to her room for some well deserved rest.

As anyone might have expected, everyone managed to settle in some form another- all except Ramger, who was perpetually tense by his circumstances. During the night, the royal advisor decided to take a walk around the house to hopefully gain trust in his surroundings.

The floor boards creaked underneath Ramger's boots as he went about on his stroll in observing the house. While he walked, he couldn't help to begin to think about the last time he had lived in Torrboro. He tried to tell himself that things were different than last time now that he had found his son but this didn't stop him from becoming upset remembering the loss of his wife. Ramger paused when he teared up and took out his handkerchief to wipe his nose.

Unfortunately, where Ramger decided to pause and reflect happened to be where another hole in the ceiling was. Before he knew what hit him, he was soaking wet and covered in flour.

A high pitched scream awoke nearly everyone in the house, bringing most of them to their doorways to look and see what had happened to merit such a scream.

This jarring noise caused Kinabrick to equip himself with his sword and run out to Ramger's aid. However, he soon found this to be unnecessary when he saw it was only a harmless prank.

Ramger, on the other hand, was livid. "I saw who did it! It was a ridgerunner I say! I saw it in the rafters after it threw flour on me!"

"What are you on about?" Clef asked with an exhausted tone whilst leaning in the doorframe of their room.

"What's going on?" Celeste asked from her doorway with concern. "What's with all the screaming?"

Rita exited her room in a hurry. "What is all this commotion about?-" She gasped when she saw Ramger and ran to him. "Oh, handsome! I'm so sorry! It looks like little Sebby forgot not to flour visitors!"

"'Handsome'?" Clef cringed at the nickname that was given to his father.

Ramger also cringed but more intensely. "What are you talking about, woman?"

Rita started trying to dust Ramger off. "Little Sebby, the ridgerunner I took in as a baby... I gave him instructions to dump flour and water on Hubert if he hears him sleep walking at night. Little Seb must have mistaken you for Hubert!" She turned her head up toward the ceiling and whistled. "Sebby! Get down here this minute and apologize to this gentleman!"

The child ridgerunner, also known as Sebastian, slowly peeked his head out from behind one of the support beams.

"Sebby, come down here this minute!" Rita repeated, stamping her foot on the floor.

Seb sighed heavily and swung down to their level like a monkey. He landed on Rita's shoulders like a baby koala and looked at Ramger. "I'm sorry..." He mumbled but he appeared to mean it because he was tearing up.

Ramger was heated for a moment but when he saw the ridgerunner was still a child, he sighed. "I forgive you- just- please don't do that again."

"WHO'S SCREAMING AT 3AM AT NIGHT?!" A voice howled from down the hall.

"Just you, Hubert! Go back to bed! You're sleep walking again!" Rita shouted in response.

Hubert, whom no one had yet met, replied, "Oh! Okay! See you in the morning!" He used an oddly happy tone as he headed back into his room before he could be seen.

"I think I'm in the Twilight Zone..." Ramger muttered to Kinabrick with exhaustion.

Kinabrick sighed. "Where can we get him cleaned up?"

"Oh, um, the washroom downstairs. Be careful to check the tub for thwaps... they like sleeping in there." Rita replied. "Towels are in the cabinet. I'm so sorry for this..."

"It's fine... It's not like I could sleep anyway." Ramger grumped before heading downstairs.

Kinabrick followed him just to be sure he didn't run into any more interruptions.

As for everyone who had been woken up, they all returned to their beds to try and get some sleep for the remainder of the night.